Examined in this study were middle school stress, social supports, and adjustment of 482 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade adolescents. Multiple regression analyses were used to relate differing types of stress and social support to students\u27 self-concept, feelings of depression, and liking of school. The effects of adolescent characteristics (gender, grade level, grade point average, and education placement status) also were assessed. Results showed that higher academic stress and less emotional support from the family were related to lower academic self-concept, and higher peer stress and less companionship support from peers were associated with lower social self-concept. Emotional support from the family moderated the influence of peer stress on feelings of depression. Problem-solving support from adults outside the family moderated the effects of teacher/rules stress on adolescents\u27 liking of school. The importance of identifying the linkages between types of stress, social support, and adjustment, using a developmental perspective, is discussed

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The nature and quality of preadolescent friendships between children with and without learning problems due to mental retardation or mild cognitive difficulties were investigated. Based on an assessment of the reciprocal relationship status of 373 children, including 54 with learning problems, 33 friend and 32 acquaintance dyads were identified. Of these dyads, half included a child with learning problems and half consisted of 2 children without learning problems. The dyads were observed performing a play task. Unlike friendships between children without disabilities, friendships between children with and without learning problems were marked by limited collaboration and shared decision-making, a low level of cooperative play and shared laughter, and an asymmetrical, hierarchical division of roles. The importance of advancing beyond the study of the social acceptance of children with learning problems to study the qualitative aspects of their friendships was discussed.

Studies of cognition in education continue to suggest that learners acquire and internalize knowledge through social interaction with others. A term often used to describe this model of knowledge acquisition is inquiry, as in "inquiry-based learning." This model assumes that knowledge results from a process of constructing answers to questions about which learners are genuinely curious and in which they have some personal or professional investment. Two recent books from prominent literacy researchers illustrate the value of inquiry as an analytic approach to understanding how people learn about literacy. Vygotskian Perspectives on Literacy Research: Constructing Meaning through Collaborative Inquiry, edited by Carol Lee and Peter Smagorinsky, expands upon and illustrates the theories of the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky through analysis of literacy learning and literacy research in communities of practice. Inside City Schools: Investigating Literacy in Multicultural Classrooms, by Sarah Warshauer Freedman, Elizabeth Radin Simons, Julie Shalhope Kalnin, Alex Casareno, and the M-CLASS teams (Multicultural Collaborative for Literacy and Secondary Schools), describes and analyzes the collaborative process by which a network of literacy teacherresearchers explores themes of cultural difference with their students, and how this process contributes to the teachers' professional knowledge. Though these two books discuss learners in different settings, they both support the argument that teachers themselves need to engage in sustained inquiry into their practice in order to support students' inquiry in the classroom. Both books do much to explain the value of inquiry in literacy research. At the same time, they illustrate the importance of literacy, and language, to meaningful inquiry. As Vygotsky (1962) proposed, written language mediates thought and scaffolds higher-order thinking processes such as reflection and analysis.Editor's Review of Vygotskian Perspectives on Literacy Researc.